childrens story books

Research on Reading and Child Development
We believe that reading is an important part of child development and look for the most up-to-date and informative articles and research on childhood reading to pass on to you. Please click on a link to be directed to the relevant articles and websites.

Reading Development Begins At Birth
Kelly B Cartwright, Ph.D

Reading development begins at birth! Many adults assume that learning to read does not start until children begin formal schooling. However, infants, toddlers, and preschool children learn many things essential to skilled reading before formal reading instruction ever begins. This knowledge is acquired through experience with spoken language and experience with books (and other printed materials).

Experience with Spoken Language

Because written language is based on spoken language, children's experiences with speech and conversation provide them essential knowledge that supports later reading development. Researchers have found that children develop the ability to reflect on and talk about language through interactions with parents, teachers, and more competent peers (Pellegrini and Galda, 1994). Reading skill is built on this awareness of spoken language. For example, they learn that words are separate units of spoken language, and this is related to their developing abilities to recognize and write words.

The English language is an alphabetic system, meaning that our written symbols correspond to the separate sounds, or phonemes, in spoken language. This kind of system is more difficult to learn than a logographic language, such as Chinese, in which written symbols generally correspond to whole words, rather than parts of words. To learn to read well, children must be aware that spoken words can be divided into separate sounds. Eventually, they will connect those sounds with written symbols, letters, in order to decode print (Gough, Juel, and Griffith, 1992). Children learn about the different sounds in words through experiences with spoken language. Activities that highlight sound categories in spoken language, such as listening to stories with rhyme and alliteration, singing rhyming songs, and playing word games, give children an awareness that words are made up of separate sounds. This provides them essential knowledge on which later reading acquisition is based.

Experience with spoken language also provides children skills that support later reading comprehension. Some researchers make the distinction between contextualized and decontextualized language (Dickinson and Tabors, 1991; Snow, 1983, 1991). Contextualized language is tied to the immediate environment. We use this type of language when we say things like "Get your coat" or "Eat your supper." This kind of language is simple, and it omits important features of language that are important in reading.

When we write, read, and have conversations, we often use decontextualized language. This is language that is not tied to the immediate context. It may reflect past events, future events, or fictitious events. For example, decontextualized language is used in everyday dinnertime conversation, when adults tell stories of their childhood, or when children tell about their school day. This type of language requires children to use their developing mental abilities to represent ideas, and this process is important to the development of reading comprehension (Dickinson and Tabors, 1991; Snow, 1983, 1991).

Experience with Print

Even before they learn how to decipher the letters on a printed page, children are learning vital information through interaction with books and other printed materials. When children see adults reading or writing notes, lists, and e-mail, they learn that print is meaningful. In addition, they see that print serves important functions in the environment. For example, it enables us to convey information to others without the necessity of face-to-face interaction. To promote the development of this understanding, adults can involve children in writing notes, letters, and e-mail to others. By conveying their own messages and reading (or hearing us read) relevant responses, children learn that print is meaningful to them at a personal level (Purcell-Gates, 1994).

When children are provided age-appropriate books of their own, and when they see adults reading, they acquire important knowledge about the use and handling of books. For example, they learn the proper orientation for holding a book and that reading proceeds from front-to-back and left-to-right in books. Further, they learn that the print in books, rather than the pictures, carries the message. Finally, these activities also allow children to see that print corresponds to speech in fairly regular ways. This knowledge is essential if children are going to master the alphabetic nature of the English language.

Each of these ideas is essential to skilled reading, yet they are facts that most adults take for granted (Goodman, 1986).
Young children need experience with both spoken and written language to develop into skilled readers. Parents and caregivers need to provide rich language experiences for children by talking and reading to them frequently. Early, positive experiences with language lay an essential foundation for later reading development.

References:

Dickinson, D. K., & Tabors, P.O. (1991). Early literacy: Linkages between home, school and literacy achievement at age five. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6, 30-46.

Goodman, Y. (1986). Children coming to know literacy. In W. H. Teale & E. Sulzby (Eds.) Emergent literacy: Writing and reading. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.

Gough, P.B., Juel, C., & Griffith, P.L. (1992). Reading, spelling, and the orthographic cipher. In P. B. Gough, L. C. Ehri, & R. Treiman (Eds.) Reading acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Pellegrini, A.D., & Galda, L. (1994). Early literacy from a developmental perspective. In D. F. Lancy (Ed.) Children's emergent literacy: From research to practice. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishing.

Purcell-Gates, V. (1994). Nonliterate homes and emergent literacy. In D. F. Lancy (Ed.) Children's emergent literacy: From research to practice. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishing.

Snow, C. (1983). Literacy and language: Relationships during the preschool years. Harvard Educational Review, 53, 165-189.

Snow, C. (1991). The theoretical basis for relationships between language and literacy in development. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6, 5-10

Specializing in child development, Kelly B Cartwright, Ph.D is a full-time faculty member in the Psychology Department at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. Dr. Cartwright's research has focused on cognitive development, language, literacy, and gender issues.

Why Babies need books

Reading to babies is a great way to develop their language skills, encourage a love of reading, develop closer relationships and help them to understand the world. Babies and toddlers who love books increase their potential to do well at school and have increased confidence, independence and concentration.

In 1992 Booktrust, the reading charity that runs the Bookstart scheme in the United Kingdom, commissioned the developmental experts Professor Barrie Wade and Dr Maggie Moore to examine the effect on families who share books with young children. The results demonstrated that two- and three- year-olds who experienced 'book sharing' started school with significant advantages and scored more highly in various pre-school tests.

Reading stories aloud is a chance for parents and carers to share a simple, fun and rewarding experience. Read everything from comics to storybooks to encourage the child's imagination and the adult's confidence. Providing a reading role model is the best way to build vocabulary and condition the child's brain to associate reading with pleasure.

(By Katherine Solomon at Bookstart: Nursery World, 1 February 2007)

About Reading Rockets

Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. Here are some interesting articles from Reading Rockets

www.readingrockets.org

Parental involvement in reading: research and recommendations for practice

Over the years, research has demonstrated that if parents read to their children, have books in their home, and here their children read, children's reading standards improve. This page gives you some key studies which have argued that parental involvement is vital for children's reading attainment. There is a vast amount of research in this area, and only UK studies have been cited

Why Do Some Children Struggle With Reading?

Learning to read is not a natural process like learning to speak. Human brains are hard-wired to speak however learning to read and write are acquired skills by a process that requires early systematic and direct instruction.

Three recent studies have pinpointed the reason why some children lag behind with reading. Up until a decade ago, it was widely believed that those children who lagged behind with reading were just what was termed 'late bloomers' and would eventually catch up when their brains matured. This was termed a 'developmental lag'. The more recent studies have found this to be incorrect and that these children lacked a crucial skill required when learning to read; Phoneme awareness. This has been termed a 'skill deficit'.

In the last few decades researches and educators alike have come to similar conclusions, which can be best summed up as follows;

1. Phonemic Awareness is the BEST predictor of reading success (Adams, 1991) and 2. Phonemic Awareness must be explicitly taught. (Brady, Fowler, Stone, & Winbury, 1994).

So what is phoneme awareness?

Firstly, it is important to know what a phoneme is. A phoneme is a basic unit of sound used to build a language. All spoken words are made up of one or more individual phonemes. For example the word DOG is made up of 3 phonemes D. O and G. Separating the word DOG into these three distinct phonemes, requires phonemic awareness. So basically phonetic awareness is the understanding that a word consists of a series of discrete sounds.

It is therefore crucial to help your children develop phenemic awareness if you want them to excel at reading. Here are some games and activities to help your children develop phonemic awareness;

1. Buy or make alphabet flash cards and pictures of objects that start with various sounds. If your child finds a picture of a cat say the word "cat" with her and then see if she can find the letter "c" to go with it.

2. Play rhyming Games. For example; Do these sound the same? (hand-band) or different (shoe-car)? What word doesn't belong? (bed, shed, flower, ted)

3. Talk about what sound their name starts with. For example "Your name starts with the letter E; E is for Ella!" Once she becomes familiar with her name start saying other people's names and talk about what sounds these names begin or end with.

4. Exaggerate the sounds of words by holding on to them, for example sssssnake. Or use repetitions such as t-t-t-toes.

And one last and most important thing - don't forget to make it Fun!

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